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She tips her head back and laughs. A shot of possessiveness attacks and I beat it down, instead, I call on Hailey and distract Lucian with ice cream. He follows her out of the room and I tap my fork against the crystal of my glass.
Everyone's attention comes to me, and I slip my hand into Mel's. I press a kiss to her knuckles, and Mother smiles softly. "I know dinner tonight was impromptu, but we've barely had time to spend with each other, so I thought the news we have to share was a good enough excuse to gather here today."
"We don't need an excuse to gather Xander." Mother mumbles.
"No, we don't. But we're all here today." I nod at Mel. "You tell them."
She tilts her head to the right and then presses a kiss to the corner of my lips that I feel everywhere. She slides the smile to my father and then to her father. "I'm pregnant. We found out just this morning."
A shocked silence fills the gap her words leave. Mother's eyes widen even as she comes around the table to hug Mel. "Oh, my goodness. Are you certain?"
Mel hugs her back. "Yes, I am. The test was pretty positive."
Gianna comes around the table next, and she glares down at her sister first before squeezing her arms around her. "You lied to me."
Mel loops her arms tight around her. "No I didn't. I said there's nothing wrong. There isn't."
"Oh Sissy. This is such great news." She comes over to me and hugs me just as hard. She bends her head and whispers right into my ears. "For the first time, I don't think I want to be responsible for your murder anymore."
I chuckle. "You never would've been."
She pats at my shoulders. "Well, you had to go ruin it, huh?"
Father holds his hand out to me, the other to Mel, and I take her hand as we walk to him. She tips her head to his, and he presses a kiss to her face, his sunken cheeks twitching in a smile. "I'm so happy to see the day Mel. You will never know how truly glad this makes me. Maybe we cannot rewrite history, but the future is a blank slate."
Mel nods and shifts away so I can receive my own kiss. We go over to her father, who stands and hugs her hard, pressing a kiss on her forehead. She hugs her father, sagging into his arms. He pats her back and whispers something to her that makes her laugh.
My brothers are next, and soon, the table is rowdy again, Lucian the only one among us who is utterly focused on his ice cream. Mel watches him eat, and I watch her watch him.
This is a future I'd never once envisioned. Especially after she'd left me. It had been a question of surviving her, of waking up every morning with the singular focus of going an entire day without any thoughts of her. I'd put all of me into the business, into growing it, into making sure that the Amory name deserved the tremble that it evoked.
But to have her here beside me, holding my son, carrying my son or daughter inside her, it is a blessing. I take Lucian from her. He swings his arms around my neck. "Do you want some Ice cream, Papa?"
Papa? It's the same name I'd called my father growing up as a child, and to hear it from my own son, sitting at the same table where I'd grown as a child, it smothers the air from my lungs as though it has been sucked out. "No figlio, you enjoy."
He returns his attention to the ice cream and I huff out a hard breath. He's a lovely boy. Downright, the best thing to happen to me ever. He along with his mother provide the warmth I need to chase away the cold that clouds my days at work.
Mel shifts closer and swats at something off my shoulder. I hitch my brow at her and quirk my lips. Bending my head towards hers, I whispered right into her ears. "Did you just miss getting your hands on me?"
"Best bet I plan on doing a lot of that when we get home." She runs her tongue over her plump lips. "And yes. Yes, I just did."
I groan softly. "You'll be the end of me, Sole."
27
MEL
"Why are we going? I want to stay here with you. This isn't repeating itself!"
Xander's shirt is open at the throat, dark hair peeping at me through the gap, a packed box beside him that Rosa had filled with my clothes. I've just returned from Amory Corps to find him at the door, a car idling on the curb.
He's trying to convince me Cabo is a good idea. I don't believe it is. He jerks me into him. "I didn't say I'm staying here."
Oh. That's a different story then. I sidle up against him. "So we're taking a vacation?"
"Yes. To Cabo. You need the rest and I could use the breather. Things are rolling here too fast."
He hasn't spoken about work in a few days. Which is either an indication that things are so terrible he doesn't want to scare me or he's back to hiding the facts of the business from me.
